Game hosting cloud solutions

I'm currently investigating several hosting options for my game's multiplayer service.
Can you guys recommend any?
game-hosting.eu looks promising so far but wondering if there are any other good ones you can recommend.

Note : I am looking for companies who offer US as well as Europe server locations.

Thanks

 

1AND1, see my link in my signature

 

hell no not 1and1. as soon as you try to cancel with them they make u think they cancelled ur server but then sends u a threatening letter saying if you dont pay such and such money they will take you to court. and im not the only one who has had that done to them by 1and1.

I say use google to shop for a vps.

 

Thanks for the heads up Chris.
I also get suspicious when someone recommends a company and they have a link to them with a referral id in their signature.

 

I have a VPS from burst.net, can't complain. The price is solid and I actually live in scranton, pa, so I thought it was funny that the datacenter was a mile away from my house.

 

For Game Servers location is key, check out some maps and learn a bit about current infrastructure. Dont pick the first best, check em out make sure there located on one of the big crossings and are connected to the big carriers. (aka level3 Abovenet, Sprint, ...)
Looking at there maps you can figure out allot, keeping in mind that you want your servers to be located on major intersections and close to target audience and you can strike off allot of hosts not suited for real time games.

Level3 maps: http://maps.level3.com/default/
Abovenet maps: http://www.above.net/maps/index.php

In US: Denver -> Chicago, looks interesting ...
In Europe: Paris -> Amsterdam -> Frankfurt The famous golden triangle

More Reading, make sure you don't miss the 4 sub entries on that blog.
http://blog.leaseweb.com/2011/12/20...preading-the-word-about-hosting-online-games/

And then last but not least a tool to located data-centers and hosting providers:
http://www.datacentermap.com/

enjoy the hunt

 

Thanks koen.

After all the research I've done, and after looking at 15 different providers features, pricing and infrastructure, softlayer.com seems to be the best so far. They are absolutely massive, and their prices are great, and their sales team very knowledgeable.

They have data centers at Chicago, and Amsterdam, among many other locations in the US.
Right now two servers is going to be the starting point. Since I'm on their cloud they can duplicate one of my server images to another location in under 5 minutes, which is pretty impressive.

 

really nice find, us, eu and assia all in one, well connected with private peers to almost all big crossings ...
ugh ... gone have to trow some money there way and try them out now

 

Leaseweb is even more affordable. Although they don't offer cloud in the US.
http://www.leaseweb.com/en/dedicated-servers/dual-core-servers

5000GB free bandwidth. Dedicated dual core's from 35 Euro a month. Much better deal than softlayer. I've asked them for a quote as well.

 

Has anybody tried Gamespy's? It's pretty much free for low volume usage, though I don't know how larger volume pricing or performance stack up against the competition. Still, it seems a good option for prototyping, with potential to scale up later.

 

Nothing comes up on Google regarding gamespy hosting aside from their free service was shut down in 2009.
I don't see any stuff on their site relating to hosting.

 

I'm a happy leasweb customer, they do have some issues expanding in to us (and not just lack of vps options down there). If your about to release a game and expect the need for more servers make sure to let them know well in advance so they have stock and extra space ready to go.

For development I'm currently setup with cloudvps in Netherlands, but yha I'm bias towards them for several reasons. There a bit more expensive then leaswebs vps, but very flexible with payments, day contracts, refunds in credit and so on (leasweb doesn't like that). Tech wise you should set them next to leasweb's 'Premium Cloud', personaly I would not consider using leasweb's standard cloud for anything but small websites or a quick tmp fix to get some extra resources.

https://www.cloudvps.nl

will be messing with softlayer somewhere next week.

 

Their website leaves a lot to be desired! I find it hard to find what I'm looking for.

See the feature page here - bottom left corner, "User Generated Content Cloud Data Storage". It's brief, and clicking on it doesn't help, but if you download the SDK and look at the documentation for Sake you'll get an idea of what it provides.

http://www.poweredbygamespy.com/features/

Oh, there's a blog post about it here too:

http://www.poweredbygamespy.com/2011/11/02/gamespy-technology-sake-web-admin-panel-demo-screencast/

There's some pricing information somewhere too, but again it's really hard to find.

I'd imagine that, as their C# support is a new feature, they'll be glad to have new users in this area, especially if your game will demonstrate the services in an impressive fashion.

 

We have been using rackspace (.co.uk or .com) to set up cloud servers and they have been amazing. We tried several before them and its not comparable. Namely because of service but also pricing structure. You can get something up and running and it will cost very little... if your game goes nuts you can up scale at the click of a button.

Hope that helps!

N

p.s. they offer US, UK off the shelf but have centers in Aus and other in Europe.

 

I don't see how rackspace is affordable compared to Leaseweb or even Softlayer.

In order to host windows with them, you need minimum of a 1GB RAM server = $58 a month.
That price is with NO outgoing bandwidth. Add 1000GB (which softlayer gives for free, and leaseweb gives 5000GB for free), and your cloud server is costing you $236.80. And they still don't even say what CPU that includes.

 

My burstnet 1500mhz/1gb vps is $12.95/mo they have a 1000mhz/512mb package for $7.95/mo. Great for dev, I'll probably upgrade when (if) I ever go live.

 

What puts me off them is their site. Every page I go to says it's being updated. And should be finished by December!

"The BurstNET® website is currently undergoing a complete overhaul.
The revised website will feature new services and updated information!
This page/section should be completed this month (December 2011).
Please check back shortly...."

So hard to take a company with a site like that seriously.

 

What pages are they? I'm pretty sure the only section like that is cloud.

 

All the cloud stuff (which is what I'm interested in).
If a site/business has pages that haven't been updated since December 2011 you have to wonder :|

 

Can I ask why nobody considers Amazon EC2? i just want to know if there is something wrong with them, because they have really cheap prices for example you can get a 8 Core server around $400 - $700 per year, other options are cheaper or whats then cons and pros?

 

Looking at Amazon's pricing page this is extremely confusing to read...
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/

Firstly, I get miffed when they don't put monthly costs in. I now have to go and calculate everything by 750. Then they have extra large, double extra large, and quadruple extra large servers?? wtf. What is a quadruple extra large server instance??

And their bandwidth price is also a baffler...

Traffic
Up to 10 TB / month $0.120 per GB
Next 40 TB / month $0.090 per GB

What exactly is $0.120 ??
12 cents?
and $0.090 ? 9 cents?
What is the trailing 0 for?

 

There no good for game hosting (real time), there is reason good hosts are more expensive than that and it has mostly to do with the cost of data traffic and peering over/too the big carriers.

Both are split up in to different price categories the more expensive the higher the priority of your traffic becomes, the higher the priority the faster it will be routed from point a to point b. You can guess what amazon uses for the EC2 cloud right ?

This is also way you don't want to host near big financial regions like London or New York, to meany people paying allot of money to get there stock data from point a to b as fast as they can, no way your gaming company can compete with them


Then there is the point that amazon "oversells", the cpu cores or ram are not reserved in advance and there cluster will look for it as soon as you need it and drop it when your consumption goes down. This 'looking for', 'dropping of' and 'checking of' resources is slowing things down allot and can result in response times (lag) spikes. On the other hand it is allowing them to put more costumers on to less machines and provide cheap server, it isn't a bad thing ... it's just a different system then the one you want for a real time game.

For game hosting you usually want to have reserved ram and cpu's ready to go, this will avoid the lag spikes you get when the cluster needs to find and/or move your vps to a system with a free cpu and/or extra ram.

The whole naming is just messed up, for game servers you don't want a cloud based vps system, you want a dedicated vps systems. But yha they all use 'cloud' as a word sins it's the hype of the moment ... it takes a bit or research and a good q&a with sales to make sure you get what you want.

 

What?

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/

I'm sorry but if you don't know that $0.120 is 12c.... then there's a bigger problem than Amazons pricing.

Not to say Amazon is great - but these complaints are completely overblown.

 

Joke?

Generally speaking Amazon are significantly more expensive than alternatives and significantly less performant.

For example, that '8 core server' will cost you $800 up front, + 40cents/hour [$3500/year] or 66 cents/hour [$5800/year] for windows.

In comparison, NFOservers offers:

$40 upfront and $240/month [$2880/year] for what is probably a faster CPU [need to double check], more memory, high quality low latency network and 5TB/month of bandwidth included [$600/month via Amazon]. Price is same regardless of Windows. This is a dedicated machine without virtualization overheads.

 

No joke I just didnt know, thanks to clarify, i was extremely confused just like Meltdown lol ... so whats a better option then?

 

Dedicated servers or VPS - cloud normally doesn't make sense [people get hooked into advertising but don't do the numbers].

Find a good provider in US [NFO is my recommendation], and if you want Europe servers... then look for providers there.

Europe is interesting in that it has providers like OVH Hetzner that are extreme low cost - at the cost of minimal flexibility/support.

 

I did say it was 12c, my question was more pertaining to the need for the trailing zero. I've never seen that before and to be honest don't see the point other than that it can be confusing to look at.

The page IS confusing. There is so much information, and links to different pages just to understand what you are actually getting.
Other providers, like Softlayer explain exactly what you are getting in a quarter of the detail in one short page. As a potential customer, this is my opinion, and because of it Amazon hasn't even got a new customer to first base.

 

Are you saying dedicated is the way to go?
What exactly are virtualisation overheads?

My final choice anyway is seeming to be 2 x dedicated servers from leaseweb.

 

And their bandwidth price is also a baffler...

BooHoo?

Looking at it - all the important info is on that page, however as Amazon offer a LOT of services, some offerings are better explained elsewhere.

Then go to softlayer. Amazon have their market and are doing it well - it doesn't mean that it's a good choice for you.

 

Depends on your needs - you need to figure out what you want and site down and crunch the numbers.

Virtualization isn't free, and can have negative performance impacts.

Look, I'll make ya a deal. Pick whatever you thinks best for you. Then shoot me a pm with your requirements and the solution you've discovered. Then I'll see if I can beat it.

 

Well to start I'm going to go for a dual core 1 GB ram server. One in Amsterdam, one in US. uLink has some testing tools. So I'm going to use these basic servers for base testing to determine what my multiplayer server can squeeze out the hardware. Then would upgrade based on that.

 

If you're using uLink you're using Windows so I'd set aside 1CPU 1GB for that alone. [It doesn't strictly need it, but setting it aside will give best performance]. The Leaseweb dual core servers I'm looking at are using very old CPU's - might as well get a reputable VPS [e.g. nfo as I do] that run on Nehalem architecture which is a fairly big step up. [Sandy bridge is ideal, but it is hard to find VPS's on it because the many core, many socket versions haven't been released].

Basically it comes down to the following:

A good VDS will cost the same or less, offer better performance and actually be MORE representative in performance terms of a dedicated server than your dedicated server

 

The NFO offerings I must say look pretty good. Pity they only in the US
But I guess dealing with a company in the US and a company in Europe is not the end of the world.

This option from Hetzner looks quite reasonable..
http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produkte_rootserver/x3

 

Both are know to use data centers outside of hot spots, resulting in high latency.

 

That's a good point.

Ok so right now it seems like NFO in the US, and Leaseweb in Europe.

 

If you're just talking about runtime server hosting, is it a fundamental decision you need to make before launching? I would have thought it would be quite simple - technically, at least - to migrate to a different service if you don't like the one you start with. Are there serious obstacles that aren't obvious at first sight?

 

I'm just trying to find the best bang for the buck at the moment, with easy scalability to upgrade and expand as demand is needed.
But you're right, it is pretty easy to move across, but I'd like to have reviewed as many options as possible and get peoples opinions hoping that I make the right decision the first time.

Nothing could be more detrimental to a games launch success than unreliable multiplayer servers. So I want to get it right the first time.
also pricing is a factor, not only in the beginning, but in the long run too. If I get the best bang for the buck on 2 servers, when it comes to upgrade to 12 servers, I know I'll still be getting the most for my money.

This is what I've come with for the best solution in the US, and in Europe, thanks to all those who commented on this thread..

Europe - Leaseweb - Dedicated Server
Quad Core Xeon X3210
4GB Ram
5000GB traffic
$89 a month
Disadvantage : Server deployments in the US can take up to 5 days, although they say usually in 2 days.

US - NFO - Dedicated Virtual Server
Quad Core Nehalem
4GB Ram
4000GB traffic
$89 a month (3 month contract else $99 a month)
Disadvantage - Only offer hosting in the US and server is not a pure dedicated server as Leaseweb offers.

 

Just a small but important correction. The NFOservers VDS's use hyper-threading.

 

How do you think those two servers CPU's will perform compared to each other?
I tried to google some comparisons but can't find much.

 

Not going to waste time looking too deeply - but I guess either they will be similar, or the NFO *should* be faster. It's got superior architecture and frequency on its side, but is weakened by the hyperthreading.

The 'right' server ATM is a sandy bridge machine with a e3 12*0. @ ~$200/month it is a beast in terms of performance.

The key here is to launch with considerable performance - this can only be determined by bench-marking your side [For all we know an atom processor will be sufficient ]. The other key thing to do is to be able to scale up quickly in the case of excessive demand. This is one thing I like about NFO - their VPS's can be set up almost instantly [say 30 mins to install + how long you take to set up]. Not quite as fast or automated as a properly set up cloud solution - but much better than the DAYS it can take for a dedicated server to be set up.

 

100% agree. Although anything more than 2 x $89 servers a month will be out of the launch budget.
The servers will be closely monitored, and another good gauge of performance requirements will be how many sales the game makes once it's launched. If I sell a few thousand copies in the first week then I know those 2 little servers are not going to cut it

 

Here are some questions I posted to uLink about server hosting.
David from uLink was happy to answer.. some good stuff here...

Question : So would it be good to say host 32 race session .exe’s, with each core serving 8?

Answer : Yes. This should be no problem. One example: Battlefield Bad Company2 was hosting 16 game servers on a 4 core CPU when they have 16 players per session when the game was launched several years ago. Their servers are optimized a lot (and they are not using uLink), but just to give you something to compare with.

You only have 4 players per session, therefore you should have no problem at all reaching 100 game servers on that 4 core server. Just make sure your game server has a high nice FPS when you run it locally (for example in a unity editor) and take a look at the Unity profiler just to make sure your game server doesn't consume CPU doing unnecessary stuff.

I have tester 400 SnowBox demo game servers with 4 players each on an 8 core Windows machine.

When you run the servers in the datacenter, make sure the CPU per core is around 80%, this is a nice goal to avoid FPS-drops if one game server temporarilly will need some extra CPU (for example doing the physics-simulating of a big crash in one race session). So keep an eye on your servers when you release the game


Question : I would need to put the lobby server on this same server. I assume the lobby server uses very little resources?

Answer : The lobby server will consume minimal resources. Put it on the same WIndows host.


Question : What are your thoughts on dedicated vs virtual servers for game hosting?

Answer : Virtual servers are very OK for game servers. For your setup they are perfect. You will not see any performance difference.
Dedicated hardware is much more nice to have when you are hosting several game servers that do need to communicate with each other with super low latency. This communication must be fast (for example between the 100 game servers and a central database) and then it is important that the database and game server is located on the same LAN in the data center to get a minimal latency.
If you can get your hosting company to promise that your virtual servers will always stay close to each other with minimal latency, then it is OK, but my experience with virtual servers is that they can be moved between data centers...

 

We are using AirVM (http://www.airvm.com/) at the moment and it's been working well. You can turn it off when not in use to save some cost. it's around $20-60/month depending on usage for a basic setup. It was recommended on the Photon forum I believe and that's where we found it.

We've used both Photon and uLink with it, and it works quite well.

 

I'm configuring a Windows server on there and for a 2Ghz CPU, 1 GB Ram, 25Gig HD I'm already up to $172 a month. No thanks.

https://airvm.cloudhostedservers.com/configure.php#toggle-monthly

 

You'll pay that much only if you use all the hardware resources day and night for 30 days ).

If you're looking for a fixed price dedicated sever, have a look at hetzner (www.hetzner.com)

 

Of course and based on the previous posts in the thread there are much better hosting solutions both hourly and monthly.

I'm also wondering who would host a multiplayer server for their game and turn it on/off intermittently

 

You didn't even mention it's free unless you get massive traffic. It is a mess to figure out their UI though.

 

if ur doing a server for a Unity powered game i find that Photon is cheap and easy.

 

What you guys thinks of Player.IO they have cheap prices too and also they offer other services like BigDB, Payvault etc... here are the prices: http://playerio.com/pricing/

Btw, I've used their services before but with flash and its great.

 

First of he's using uLink which means going to Player.IO will most likely require massive rewrites. Then of course, Player.IO is based on Amazon - so you have the hideous latency etc. but with $600/TB pricing.

P.IO is great when you are making very simple games. And let's not even talk about their support